Posted by chicagomedia.org on April 05, 2009 at 18:58:25:
20 years working in the front row
THAT'S RICH | For two decades, column has been a 'golden ticket' to history
April 5, 2009
BY RICHARD ROEPER | Chicago Sun-Times Columnist
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When I was growing up, the newspaper business was as solid as Sears, which was as solid as General Motors, which was as solid as U.S. Steel, which was as solid as Pan-Am Airlines.
Things change.
In the Chicago area in the 1960s and 1970s, the question wasn't whether your family subscribed to a newspaper--the question was which newspaper: the Chicago Daily News, the Chicago American, the Chicago Tribune or the Chicago Sun-Times. A home without a newspaper on its doorstep in the morning was as unthinkable as a home without a TV antenna on the roof or an AM radio in the kitchen. At my house, we subscribed to the Daily News, and my father would bring home the Sun-Times after reading it on the train on the way home from work.
In the 1970s and through the 1980s and even the 1990s, there were few jobs that carried the prestige, glamor and clout of the newspaper columnist.
You think I'm kidding? When I started at the Sun-Times in the late 1980s the legendary Kup would occasionally rumble through the newsroom like the ex-footballer that he was, still robust and intimidating in his 60s. He was usually making his way from his expansive corner office to his private bathroom, to which only Kup had the key.
Kup? He was more like Hef. If an established newspaper columnist asked his editors for a private bathroom today, they'd put him on a mental health leave.
Longtime heavyweight columnists such as Pete Hamill and Jimmy Breslin in New York, Jack Anderson in Washington, Mike Royko and Irv Kupcinet in Chicago -- these guys were often more famous and more powerful than the subjects they wrote about. They were huge. (In some ways, Ann Landers, who had a Pepto Bismol-pink suite of an office at the old Sun-Times, was a bigger star than all the boys. Presidents came to her for advice.) And of course Roger Ebert was already world-famous when I started at the Sun-Times. The first time I saw Roger in the newsroom, it took a moment to sink in: Holy s---!
Kup's gone now, but he has a bridge in his name, and a towering statue near the old site of the Sun-Times building. Call me crazy, but I'm having a hard time envisioning a Perez Hilton Bridge in our lifetime.
When Royko dropped into a courtroom, the judge would stop the proceedings, invite the columnist into his chambers and ask Royko what he could do for him. Today's entertainment bloggers are thrilled when they can post a picture of themselves with Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz. When Kup was in his prime, Bogie and Bacall were hanging with him on their honeymoon, and he was running around with Sinatra.
Bob Greene was brought down by a scandal. But before his fall, Greene had a run that no columnist or blogger will ever come close to matching in the 21st century. It's just not possible, given budget constraints and the changes in the relationship between the chroniclers and those who are chronicled. As a star columnist on the rise, Greene had an all-access pass to the latter part of the 20th Century. Greene went on tour with Alice Cooper; he hung out with Elvis and Nixon; he became buddies with Michael Jordan. Greene parlayed his newspaper column into gigs with Esquire and "Nightline."
Just before the dawn of the Internet Age in the mid- and late-1990s, journalism students still had big dreams of one day writing a daily, general interest column for a major newspaper. You get a gig like that, you'd be set for life!
If you couldn't be a baseball player or a rock star, a newspaper columnist was the next best thing. Hyperbole? Not really. Here's a story for you. The scene was the famous Billy Goat Tavern of "Saturday Night Live" and "Cheeseborger, Cheeseborger" and Cubbie-curse fame, right around 1990. At the time, the Sun-Times was still at 401 N. Wabash (now home to the gleaming, blue-glassed Trump Tower), and the Goat sat squarely between and just beneath the Tribune Tower and the barge-shaped Sun-Times Building. Head down there any night after work, especially on a Friday, and the joint would be bulging with reporters, photographers, columnists, editors and other newsies--most of them smoking and all of them drinking.
On one such evening, Royko was there, and I was there, and at one point we wound up at the same table. Now, Royko didn't like me. He didn't like anybody. Well, I guess he liked his family and a few other people in life, but he sure as hell never liked any up-and-coming columnist, whether it was someone at his own paper or a punk at the rival rag. In an infamous Chicago magazine profile, Royko was asked to assess a half-dozen columnists in town, and he ripped every one of us.
A certain exchange that night was captured in an article Bill Zehme wrote for Esquire magazine a few years ago:
In Chicago a story has circulated among certain pockets of younger newspaper people for years ... It takes place, circa 1990, at the legendary Billy Goat Tavern on Lower Michigan Avenue, where thousands of ink-stained hangovers were born. Mike Royko sat at the bar, as was his eternal wont, and a young Sun-Times columnist a couple of years on the job named Richard Roeper sat at a table with a handful of colleagues, and drinks flowed, as they will, and eventually Royko -- the dean among them all, and all else -- sauntered over to sit with them. And drinks flowed further, and Royko, who ... loved to tease punks who moved anywhere near his turf, at one point bellowed: "Roeper! What are you doing at my table!" And everyone laughed. And then: "Roeper! Where the hell did you come from, anyway!" Then, minutes later: "Roeper! Do you use your column to get laid?"
ROEPER: "Excuse me?"
ROYKO: "You heard me! Do you use your column to get laid?"
ROEPER (half jokingly, keep in mind drinks flowing): "Of course not. That wouldn't be right!"
ROYKO (pounding the table): "Well, what the hell is the point in having a column if you don't use it to get laid!"
Zehme has his facts straight. If you were a newspaper columnist in a big city like Chicago 50 or 25 or even 15 years ago, you were more than a little bit of celebrity, and you were the envy of many, and important people courted your attention -- and sometimes you'd meet someone who might not otherwise give you the time of the day, but because your picture was in the paper, she'd dance with you at midnight.
Not that this was the prime motivation for becoming a columnist; as I said nearly 20 years ago, that would be WRONG. What I'm telling you in 2009 is that in 1989, there weren't too many better gigs in the world than writing a daily column for your hometown paper, especially if your hometown happened to be one of the greatest newspaper cities ever known to humankind.
When I got the job after just a year as an editorial assistant and a couple of quick years as a city side reporter, the reaction in the newsroom ranged from outrage to bloody outrage. Some hated me, while others merely resented me.
And why wouldn't they resent me? I was given a golden ticket before I had earned that ticket. I was still in my 20s, and I had my mullet-headed mug on billboards and in TV ads, not to mention in the paper every day. In the years to come, when I would be the beneficiary of other career breaks, from radio shows to local TV to the co-hosting chair on "At the Movies," when people asked me how I dealt with criticism, I'd just laugh. The sniping from the blogosphere regarding my "At the Movies" post was a sissified wet kiss compared to the crap I took when I first got a column at the newspaper. You survive that hazing, you'd be ready to take on Lynndie England at her most sadistically impish and smile your way through it.
When I went from part-time columnist and full-time reporter to full-time columnist--complete with office, business card, fax machine, expense account and prime-time real estate in the paper four times in the week--it was 1989. The Tribune was a mighty monolith, the Sun-Times was scrappy but thriving. My promotion to full-time columnist was enough to make more than a little bit of a splash in Chicago media circles. I was the subject of profiles in the free weeklies, I was asked to appear on various radio shows, I was invited to big parties at happening nighteries like the Limelight. ("You are invited to join Russ Meyer and Playboy's Donna Edmondson for 'Leave it to Cleavage' Night ...") Somebody gets a column today, and the first question anyone would ask would be, "You mean like in a newspaper? Are they paying you?"
The newspaper column led to guest spots on radio shows. The guest spots on radio shows led to a weekend radio program. The weekend radio program led to a daily radio show. The daily radio show led to guest spots on TV shows. The guest spots on TV shows led to a regular commentator's gig on TV. All of these things led to books. And eventually the column-to-radio-to-local-TV path took me to a guest-hosting gig with Roger Ebert, which led to many more guest-hosting stints, which led to the permanent co-hosting job in the summer of 2000, which led to nearly 20 appearances on "The Tonight Show."
If I didn't get that column, this never would have happened.
I'm still writing four columns a week for the Chicago Sun-Times, every Monday through Thursday on Page 11, which has been my home for two decades. That's roughly 4,000 columns. When I started writing books and doing TV, a lot of people in the business expressed surprise that I'd keep the column. To which I'd respond, why wouldn't I?
As I celebrate my 20th year as a daily newspaper columnist, I cherish each and every day.
I share my reports and opinions and musings via the Sun-Times Web site, Twitter, Facebook and my own Web site. I'll continue to do so -- but I'll also continue to write for Page 11 for as long as there is a physical Page 11 to call home. I'll continue to be grateful for this rare opportunity I've had.
My column has given me a front-row seat for everything from the Clinton impeachment hearings to the first Tyson-Holyfield fight to the Oscars. It brought me to New York just after 9/11, to dinner with Robert Redford, to Grant Park on the night Barack Obama was elected. At times I've felt as if I've had an almost Gumpian presence through the 1990s and the 2000s, whether I was playing softball with Michael Jordan, talking about "Chocolat" with Bill Clinton, kissing an Oscar winner on her big night, asking George W. Bush to name the capital of Illinois, playing poker with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, standing at O.J. Simpson's front gate or inspecting the evidence in the decades-old case against John Wayne Gacy shortly before Gacy was executed.
Of course, the REAL perk of having a platform four days a week is the chance to help the underdog, stimulate debate or just give somebody a chuckle. The best reward of all is hearing from someone who says, "Because of your column, we were able to make a change," or something as simple as, "Your column made me laugh today, and trust me, I really needed that laugh." I once got a phone call from someone on the day after his dad died, thanking me for my work, saying my column was the first thing his father read every morning, even while he was in the hospital. On days like that, you thank God for this job.
I plan to be writing for the Sun-Times next year, and the year after that, and 20 years down the road. And I hope you'll stay with me.